Unmarked graves in Greenville Cemetery

 

Unmarked McKinley graves at Greenville Cemetery

 

Yesterday's post, "A brief visit to Greenville Pioneer Cemetery," included a few stories related to some of those buried in one of Lucas County's oldest cemeteries, located southeast of Russell in Washington Township.

But there are many other stories there, too --- including some not related to tombstones because families either did not get around to or could not afford to mark the final resting places of their loved ones. That's the case with Samuel and Mary McKinley.

Xury E. and Polly West and their family were the first to arrive at what became Greenville during May of 1848, but the McKinleys and their five children --- Lorenzo Dow, Zerelda, Oscar, Isaac Newton and Leander O --- were the second, during October of that year.

Isaac Newton McKinley, who moved from Greenville to Oklahoma ca. 1905, provided an account of the family's arrival in this letter, published in The Chariton Leader on Oct. 10, 1912:

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Boynton, Okla., Oct. 7, 1912

Mr. H.W. Gittinger:

Old Friend: I got a copy of the Chariton Leader a few days ago. It called my mind back to days of other years. I thought of the home in Iowa where I spent the best part of my life. I stayed 57 years in Lucas county. When I left there seven years ago, I was the oldest resident in the county. I had lived longer in the county than any other person.

On the 17th of October, 1848, I stood on the east bank of the Mississippi river and looked across and saw Iowa for the first time. On one of the many hills that skirted the Iowa shore was a little village called Burlington. The capital of the territory was laid out by White and Doolittle in 1834. The last time I crossed there I looked across from the east bank of the Mississippi in 1903. I saw a city up and down the river as far as the eye would reach until the view was lost in the smoke of the factories and the fog of the river.

I crossed the line of Lucas county near the northeast corner of what is now known as Washington township on the 25th day of October, 1848. I came into the county two days after the first land entry was made, so I was there at the beginning, and I still have a warm place for old Iowa. I want to come back there again while life lasts, but not in the winter again.

It was in Lucas County that we saw the Lamp of Life go out in the ones we loved. In Lucas county are the graves of our father and mother. When I look over the pages of the Leader, I see this one and that one has passed away, names and faces I knew so well. In a few years more they will all be gone. In a few years at most we, too, will be consigned to the narrow confines of the grave. We will go down to that voiceless silence of that dreamless dust and cease to exist through the endless ages of Eternity.

(signed) I.N. McKinley

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Not long after Samuel and Mary McKinley arrived in Lucas County during 1848 from Indiana, his father, William McKinley (1767-1850), and four of his brothers --- William A. (1801-1873, buried Ragtown), James H. (disabled, did not marry), John (1811-1882, also buried Ragtown) and Abner (1813-1896, buried Gowrie, Iowa) --- arrived, too. 

As a result, Lucas County has done its part in populating the world with McKinleys and many, many descendants still live here --- all descended, not from Samuel and Mary, but from his brothers. 

Samuel's and Mary's only daughter, Zerelda, died on Jan. 3, 1855, age 19, and is buried in a marked grave at Greenville. That's her tombstone, upper left. We're not sure what became of son Oscar, but he reportedly died July 28, 1862. The three remaining sons all married and had families, but moved elsewhere at various points in their lives; none of their descendants were (or are) Lucas Countyans.

The patriarch of the McKinley family, William, probably was buried at Greenville when he died in 1850 and the disabled James probably is, too. But there are no marked graves or surviving stories about them. Samuel McKinley, who among other distinctions served as Lucas County's first treasurer and recorder, died on Nov. 19, 1864, and was buried in Greenville, too --- in a grave that never was marked. Twenty years later, Mary McKinley joined him at Greenville Cemetery at the age of 81. Her grave, too, is among many unmarked final resting places there. All of these unmarked graves probably are located near Zerelda's tombstone.

We're fortunate, however, because Mary was the subject of a lengthy obituary when she died on March 17, 1884 --- an obituary written and signed by Henry W. Gittinger, son of Peter and Sarah (West) Gittinger, also Greenville pioneers buried in Greenville cemetery. Here it is, as published in The Chariton Democrat-Leader of April 9, 1884:

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DIED --- At the residence of her son in Washington township on the 27th ult., after a protracted illness of over seven weeks, Mrs. Mary McKinley, at the advanced age of 81 years.

"Leaves have their time to fall.

And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath.

And stars to set --- but all.

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, Oh Death."

Mrs. McKinley's family name was Dicks. She was a native of Mason county, Kentucky. Here her childhood was spent and here she received her early training and grew into womanhood. In 1829,  she with her parents removed to Indiana, then a wilderness, where she was joined by the holy bonds of matrimony to Samuel McKinley two years subsequent. By this union there were five children, three of whom are still living, Dr. L. D. McKinley, now of Melrose, Leander O. McKinley, of Tingley, and Isaac N. McKinley.

They resided in Indiana until 1848, when they were induced to come west by the glowing accounts of the country beyond the great father of waters. They founded their home in Washington township, this county, and endured all the privations of the early pioneer, reared their family, and dwelt happily until November 1864 when her worthy husband was stricken down by the cruel hand of death, since which time she has lived with her son, I.N. McKinley, on the old homestead, cherishing her own sorrow in solitude until the trump sounded that called her from the shores of time to sleep the sleep that knows no wakening, beside her husband in the Greenville cemetery. She was followed to her last resting place by a large concourse of friends on Friday.

This is only another example of the frailty of the human frame. Apparently she suffered from no disease in particular, but her time had come and she was called to go. No eulogy of her life is necessary, and when she was called on to render up her life she did so without reluctance. The earth is constantly being replenished; generations give rise to generations who in turn are buried by posterity after posterity. Such is life and such is death. Joined by a brittle thread.

(signed) H.W. Gittinger